All That Heaven Allows
by This is My Truth Tell Me Yours
Summary: Andromeda Black is spending the Christmas Holidays with Ted Tonks at his family's farm, during their seventh year at Hogwarts. The girl has run away from her home, her family cast her aside and there is a war going on in their world. In spite of all that, Ted had plans for the future, and he very much wishes to include Andromeda in those plans. If she wants him.


_**Author's Note:** The ideas are mine, the characters belong to JK. The lyrics of Piazza, New York Catcher belong to Belle and Sebastian. _

* * *

_"__You had plans for both of us  
That involved a trip out of town  
To a place I've seen in a magazine  
That you left lying around"_

**_Miss Misery, Elliott Smith_**

* * *

"Athenas… Palermo... Rome... Florence… Venice... Paris... Stockholm..." Ted said, running his finger through the map of Europe stuck to his wall, passing by all the cities he intended to visit. "Then somewhere up north, around here, to watch the Northern Lights."

He was kneeling on his bed, facing the map just above the headboard. It was an old map, something he'd started working on when he was twelve or thirteen. It was full of coloured pins marking all of the places he wanted to visit.

"What next?" Andromeda asked.

She was lying in the bed behind him, her legs up against the wall, and her arms crossed behind her head in place of a pillow.

"I don't know," Ted replied with a smile, sitting down again and facing the girl once more. "Someplace farther away, I guess… India… Uganda… or perhaps America…"

There was definitely a dreamy tone to his voice when he said that.

"When are you planning on doing this?"

He shrugged.

"After Hogwarts… Before whatever comes next…"

Andromeda smiled. She loved how carefree he was, how full of hopes and dreams…

He longed to travel, to visit every corner of the globe. He had dreamed about that for as long as he could remember. When he was a child, long before he even knew he was a wizard, he had been a member of a society of young explorers, he'd told her. It was a big deal, he said, being part of such a group, especially because his family lived in such a remote farm in Northumberland. The day his copy of that month's National Geographic arrived (it was a magazine, he'd told her excitedly) was easily the best day in the month for him. He would wait for the postman at the gate, and he would talk about whatever articles he read for a whole month.

Even now, there was a stack of old magazines on the second shelf above his desk. Andy had browsed through those magazines a couple of times. The photographs were beautiful. They depicted places so exotic Andromeda would never have thought they were possible. Nature, Ted had told her once, was a type of magic on its own.

His enthusiasm was refreshing. He was looking forward to finally seeing the world, now that they were a mere few months away from graduating. Everyone else seemed to be crumbling under the pressure of the upcoming exams, but Ted didn't let it get to him. It wasn't that he didn't care – he was an excellent student – it was just that he knew his dreams lay elsewhere.

Andromeda had always been around people who'd had their entire lives planned out for them since before they were born. But Ted didn't live like that. There was nothing tying him down anywhere. He was free, and it was refreshing to be around him.

Someone opened the door, and his mum peeked inside the room. She was holding a basket of clothes that needed to be washed.

"Is there anything for me to wash, Edward? Andromeda?" she asked.

"No, Mum."

"No, Mrs Tonks."

"Keep the door open, the two of you…" she said as she was leaving. "No need to go closing doors…"

The teenagers nodded and smiled at one another. They could hear her humming Christmas Carols as she walked away.

It was the first time Andromeda wasn't going to spend Christmas with her family. Last Christmas, they'd had a falling out. It was the worst argument they had ever had in her life, and Andromeda and her parents had been arguing for as long as she could remember. They had wanted her to spend a weekend at Malfoy Manor, but she had not wanted to go. The point was for her to become better acquainted with the Malfoys. Her family had arranged her marriage to Lucius Malfoy before Andromeda had even started school, and she was expected to become his wife as soon as they finished Hogwarts.

That was the custom among old pureblood families in the wizarding world. Marriages were political alliances. The decisions belonged to the parents. But Andromeda had never cared for having her decisions made for her.

The girl had protested against those arrangements from the very first day, but her family dismissed her complaints as a childish whim. It was easy enough to ignore the betrothal at first. Lucius was a year behind her in school, and they hardly ever saw each other. She was not looking forward to becoming his wife, but the marriage would not take place until they both finished school, and at first, it was difficult to worry about something that was so far away in the future.

That future, however, no longer seemed so distant.

Andromeda was not a little girl anymore. As she got older, she realized her family would not back down on their plans. Her older sister had finished school the year before, and she was already married to her betrothed, in spite of all that had transpired between them prior to their union. That marriage, more than anything else, made Andromeda realize she could not ignore her parents' plans forever.

The day after Bellatrix's wedding, Andromeda ran away.

It happened last summer, the summer between her sixth and seventh years of school. She reached out to Edward Tonks because he was her best friend and he had invited her to visit his parents' farm before. Ted had been her friend for years. The day they talked to each other for the first time they had been at the balcony of Hogwarts' clock tower. They talked for so long they didn't notice their curfew come and go, and by then it was just easier to remain there the rest of the night and watch the sunrise together. He fell asleep at breakfast in the Great Hall the next day. Andromeda watched, from her place at the Slytherin table. It made her laugh.

Edward knew every one of her secrets. She had told him about her family and about the quarrels she had with her parents; about their ideas on blood purity, and how none of it made sense to her; about her sisters and how angry it made her that they were so passive about their parents' plans… She also told him about her betrothal, and about how she had no intention of marrying Malfoy, or anyone else for that matter. It was Edward who first suggested she should run if things got too difficult. It was he who had told her to come with him to his farm if she needed a place to stay.

Mr and Mrs Tonks had agreed to take her in. They were worried about the fact that she had run away at first, but they did not believe in forcing a young girl to get married against her will, and they welcomed Andromeda into their home with open arms. When the summer was over, they invited her to come back for Christmas. No one said anything, but they knew she would never be welcome in her parents' home again. They had burnt her name from the family tapestry and from that moment on, she had ceased to exist for the family. That was why she was in Ted's bedroom now.

She did not sleep in his bedroom, of course… Mrs. Tonks suspected her son and Andromeda to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but they were too young to sleep in the same room, she said. It wouldn't be proper. Andromeda slept in another room, one that had belonged to Ted's older sister before she left for university. And whenever they were together, his mum insisted they kept the doors open. It was cute, the way she worried about Andromeda.

"What would her parents, say?" she'd asked.

Be that as it may, it was not like Andromeda and Ted would be doing anything other than talking to each other when they were alone… He had never been her boyfriend; they had never even kissed each other before.

"You could come with me, you know?" Ted said, finally, awakening her from her musings. "No law says we can't elope…"

"What?" Andromeda was startled.

Ted shrugged, brushing a strand of hair away from his eyes.

"Elope with me, Miss Private, and we'll sail around the world!"

Andromeda smiled. He called her that sometimes, Miss Private, because it had taken so long for her to open up to him… Because even now, she was still so mysterious and quiet that he hardly ever knew what she was thinking.

"Wouldn't you like to see Paris? Or the Northern Lights? And you could help me decide where to go next; we could decide together!" he continued. "I will be your Ferdinand, and you, my wayward girl!"

"My Ferdinand?"

"Yes, Ferdinand Magellan, the explorer," he said excitedly. "The first man to circumnavigate the globe."

"I have never heard of him…"

"Well, I am telling you about him now! We could travel together… We could taste coffee houses all over Europe, and pick our favourites. How many nights of talking in hotel rooms do you think you can take?"

"Ted…"

"I know what I am going to do when I finish school, Dromeda! I know what I am going to do for the rest of my life! I am going to see the world. I am going to see things that startle me, and do things I have never done before! Wouldn't you like that? What do you want, Dromeda? Do you want the moon? I will throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you!"

"What about your parents?"

"My parents know I have wanted to see the world ever since I was a child. They will understand."

"But it might be dangerous for them, Ted! What about the war? What if someone—"

"What about the war?" Ted asked in a counterfeit manner. "Won't it be even more dangerous for them if I stay? As long as I am here, there might as well be a giant target on the house!"

He was angry. He was angry about the war, the unexpected war that might prevent him from following his dreams; angry about the prejudices against muggle-born wizards and frustrated because there did not seem to be anything he could do to change that.

Still, he might have a point when he said leaving might be the best way to protect his family. The Dark Lord's followers – Death Eaters; that is what Bellatrix called them, and she would know since she was a part of that group – hated muggles, but they hated muggle-born wizards a lot more. Andromeda worried about Ted's family. She feared she might have put them in danger by coming to their home. Going away might be their best hope of keeping them safe.

They were quiet for a very long time. Andromeda was weighing those thoughts in her mind. She didn't even notice Ted had been watching her until he broke the silence. He loved that she thought about protecting his family like that. He knew she worried about becoming like her parents one day, but he knew deep in his heart that would never happen. Andromeda was gentle and kind. She was loyal, sensitive, intelligent and brave, and there wasn't a prejudiced fibre in her body. She simply didn't have it in her to harbour that much hate in her heart. And she was beautiful. Exquisitely beautiful.

When he finally broke the silence again, the boy was smiling.

"Is it better to speak or to die?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"Is it better to speak or to die?" he repeated "I was just remembering a story my mum read to me once. About a knight and the time he asked that question."

At that point, they heard Mrs Tonks calling them to help with dinner downstairs.

"Wait. Finish the story first," Andromeda said, touching his arm as Ted stood up to leave. "How does the story go?"

The boy hesitated. Then he shrugged.

"I don't know how to tell it yet."

* * *

_**Author's note**: This story is full of references... I incorporated several verses of Piazza New York Catcher, my favourite song by Belle and Sebastian (I remember the first time I listened to it many years, and how I started listening to it on repeat immediately after that first time..."). It just fitted the prompt perfectly (below). It was also inspired by Miss Misery, by Elliott Smith, in a much less obvious manner. Finally, I drew inspiration from three movies to build the character of Ted. The first was It's a Wonderful Life (you will recognize the lines about throwing a lasso on the moon as George Bailey's. The second was All That Heaven Allows, and finally, the third was Call Me By Your Name (the story about the knight who doesn't know if it's better to speak or to die is from the Heptameron, and it was mentioned on that movie). I had a lot of fun writing this. It is simply a one-shot now, but it might become the first chapter of a multi-chapter story in the future. At the moment I am working on two separate multi-chapters the also have to do with the Black sisters, and in fact, the third chapter of my story Whom Gods Destroy will show the first time Ted invited Andromeda to hide from her family in his home. _

_I wrote this for the WA Flower Challenge. My prompt was: Spider flower (Meaning: Elope with me)_

_This story was beta-read by Emmeebee. I am thankful for your help, and your attention to detail. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my responsibility. _

_Please review and let me know what you think... Of all the Black sisters, Andromeda is the one I have written the least about. _

_Live Long and Prosper _\\\/_


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